Monthly Archives: February 2012

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This post contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. We will receive compensation when you click on links to those products. For an explanation of our Advertiser Disclosure, and advertiser partners, such as American Express, visit this page.

I love the clean look of the Delta colors on their birds. Southwest does their best to be light hearted but this South African one Kulula-air.com takes the cake. Has anyone seen one of these before or flown on one? Read more here!

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It is EZ to sign up for a credit card bonus deal. You get the card and then buy what ever you want with the card. Not rocket science and not much to keep track of other than spend (X-$$$) inside of (X-months) = points.

But there are a bunch of other deals that take just a little more time and entering of you data and then following up and the Delta points rewards can be big. Look at some of the ongoing deals right now:

Marriott has a deal where you can earn up to 50,000 points. (note you can ONLY register if you pick skymiles as your rewards for stays).

So please take some time now and then to make sure you are maximizing your Skymiles earnings for all your activities you can and naturally pay for them with the card that get’s you the most points as well! – Rene

Get ready for LEAP DAY TOMORROW. We will giveaway THIS!
To a DeltaPoints.com e-Mail subscriber

This post contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. We will receive compensation when you click on links to those products. For an explanation of our Advertiser Disclosure, and advertiser partners, such as American Express, visit this page.

I wanted to highlight what many new DeltaPoints readers may have missed. If you have been a long time reader of the blog, thanks for poppin’ by, but this will be old news for you so have a great evening and see you in the morning!

What I am talking about is how with just a 2 card Delta churn, you can, with $1000 in spend (2x – $500), have enough points for a low level coach ticket to Europe. You simply apply for and hopefully with a good credit score you receive approvals for both the personal and business Delta GOLD American Express cards (you do not have to have a business to get the business card btw).

Once you spend $500 on each card you will be awarded the 30,000 bonus miles offered. 60,000 points is enough for a free trip (+tax) over the “pond”. If a husband and wife were to both do the card combo, then you are both flying free!

Have any questions? Feel free to e-mail me or you can peak at the Essentials tab at the top of the page for more information. – Rene

This post contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. We will receive compensation when you click on links to those products. For an explanation of our Advertiser Disclosure, and advertiser partners, such as American Express, visit this page.

Several years ago when my wife and I were still newlyweds and checking in for our return flight home from Sweden the agent suddenly discovered a problem. My wife’s passport was issued in her maiden name, but the award ticket she was traveling on was issued in her married name. The agent said this was not the same person and said my wife could not fly! Fortunately, my wife had had her passport amended to her married name and it became a simple matter of showing the agent the last page in the passport and then all was well. What if you accidentally misspelled your own name on your skymiles account and didn’t notice until after a ticket had been issued? What could you do? It might surprise you to find out that most of these sorts of problems have been alleviated with the advent of TSA’s Secure Flight program.

In the past airlines didn’t necessarily bother to check that the name you gave for a passenger’s ticket matched the identification that passenger would use to board the flight. In fact, as long as you had a boarding pass in hand, you just walked out to the tarmac and on the plane! Airline security has come a long way from the 1960’s and will undoubtedly continue to change in the future. It’s truly amazing how quickly we adapt. Did you ever see a “life insurance dispenser” in those old days of travel or see TV adds like the Miami go go one?

You might think that it makes little difference how your name appears in your skymiles account, and for the most part, as long as it’s accurate, you’re right! Filling in a middle name is optional, and you might consider omitting this information or going with just an initial. Why? Well, as a reader recently pointed out, if your full name is longer it might be abbreviated and the abbreviations are sometimes, well, interesting. My wife formerly had her middle name on her skymiles account but when she noticed her name printed on her boarding passes as “LisaMich” she had it changed to omit the middle name entirely. If your last name has a space or a hyphen you might want to verify that both spouses have it spelled the same if possible, and it’s usually best to leave the space out as the prefix to the name often becomes your new middle name instead. This can also result in you and your spouse being assigned seats apart from one another if the names don’t match up. Lastly, using the prefix of Mr. or Mrs. or Ms. or Miss can also sometimes alter your name as it sometimes becomes fused with the first name. Delta makes it fairly easy now to change your name on your skymiles account and update your personal info online. You have to be logged into your skymiles account to make changes here, or you can access to your itinerary where you can make changes to Secure Flight info here.

What if you find yourself at the airport without your ID for whatever reason – can you still fly? I’m guessing most of you are already saying “No” without a second thought! Obviously if you’re traveling internationally you have to have your passport. Interestingly, TSA says there may be exceptions they can make and the fact that “Not having an ID, does not necessarily mean a passenger won’t be allowed to fly”.

Like I always say, if you want to play you have to know the rules. We’ve all adjusted to the new reality of flying nowadays with liquid restrictions, scanners and shuffling through the line in our stocking feet. Sometimes it’s good to take a look back and see the positive aspects of the changes we can appreciate! – René

Get ready for LEAP DAY February 29th. We will giveaway THIS!
To a DeltaPoints.com e-Mail subscriber

This post contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. We will receive compensation when you click on links to those products. For an explanation of our Advertiser Disclosure, and advertiser partners, such as American Express, visit this page.

As you can see searching one way each way I find many days with 100k seats. Now it is you turn to do the work to find seats from where you are to ATL and from LHR to where ever you want to go in Europe!

For example looking for 2 seats (yes you can not trust all the “green” dates above but):

Also look at CDG-IAD as a choice for return trips on the AF 380 (if you want to fly it):

This post contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. We will receive compensation when you click on links to those products. For an explanation of our Advertiser Disclosure, and advertiser partners, such as American Express, visit this page.

This post contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. We will receive compensation when you click on links to those products. For an explanation of our Advertiser Disclosure, and advertiser partners, such as American Express, visit this page.

Every time I’m getting ready to fly I have decided to follow this new & improved 7-Point-Plan :

1. Don’t bathe for at least a week (or more)

2. Go barefoot

Bring cans of spray paint to tag the jet bridge & the outside of the aircraft with DeltaPoints.com

Drink too much

Put on sufficient weight so as to not fit in the seat & fasten seatbelt

New slant on infant in arms – Require incubation

Get sick with a raging fever

OK, I’ll do none of these things and that’s is a much wiser choice for us all so we don’t end up as one of the 50 or so people kicked off a plane EACH DAY! But we’ve all endured sitting next to someone who recently consumed large quantities of garlic, onions, or worse, beans! But did you know that having a malodorous condition is grounds for removal from a Delta flight? It might surprise you to see what else can get you removed or denied boarding on page 11 of the official contract of carriage!

Get ready for LEAP DAY February 29th. We will giveaway THIS!
To a DeltaPoints.com e-Mail subscriber

This post contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. We will receive compensation when you click on links to those products. For an explanation of our Advertiser Disclosure, and advertiser partners, such as American Express, visit this page.

This post contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. We will receive compensation when you click on links to those products. For an explanation of our Advertiser Disclosure, and advertiser partners, such as American Express, visit this page.

Do you know that if you fly or buy a ticket on Delta then fly a KLM and or AF flight your record has more than one PNR assigned to it? It could even have 3! This will not show up on the DELTA.com web site or in any of the e-mail confirmations you get.

So how do you get these numbers. You can simply call Delta and ask for the PNR that has been creaded by KLM or AF assigned to your itinerary. Why would you want this number when you have the Delta one? Most of the time you do not need it and you can see your itinerary on the other sites with the Delta number. But there are times when having the official KLM or AF one are nice to have when you have to contact them once in route. So I always make it a practice to get them and it has paid off.

Another reason is for seat assignments with KLM. With Delta flights you can pick seats right away. With KLM/AF only 90 days prior to fight. In the past you could work around this by starting at the AF web site and get access up to 331 days before flight, but this seems to have been locked down now. Coach and certain fare class tickets will not allow seats and even as a KLM Platinum they are less than helpful about overriding this rule and tell you they are assigned by the airport.

Hey, I have 2 more of the new Red and Pink Nuo iPad or HP Touchpad Sleeves. So, let me know, yes or no, neither answer will increase your chance to win, if you knew that KLM/AF assigns you a separate Passenger Number Record (PNR) to win! Same as last time Winner #1 get’s color choice and Winner #2 get’s the other one – René

This post contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. We will receive compensation when you click on links to those products. For an explanation of our Advertiser Disclosure, and advertiser partners, such as American Express, visit this page.

Over the past few years Delta has had some sweet deals when it comes to Membership Rewards from American Express. I have taken advantage of these promo’s for both my wife & I (I even sent 50k to a friend) and have enjoyed the FREE bonus MQM’s and Skymiles.I was able to do this because I had points to use in my Membership Rewards accounts. So even though the new bonus for the AMEX Premier Rewards GOLD card of 25,000 may not sound like a home run in today’s market, with no 1st year fee, and 3x points for airline tickets and 2x points for gas, if you are going to do a card churn soon this should be a card to be considered in your mix!

Will Delta have another transfer bonus deal this year? Who knows? The last rounds had a 50k minimum transfer to get 25,000 MQM’s and then the subsequent deal was moved to 100k to get the same MQM bonus. Either way, it is better to ALREADY have the points in your account so when and if the offer does happen, you can plan your next move.

This post contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. We will receive compensation when you click on links to those products. For an explanation of our Advertiser Disclosure, and advertiser partners, such as American Express, visit this page.

Our two winners for today for the Nuo iPad Touchpad Sleeve Sunburst Red or Pink are:

#59 Lisa and #44 Eric

The correct answer by the way was: Español

Exciting new things on the way for DeltaPoints.com!

Thanks everyone for reading the blog and be sure you check out the CO card that will be gone by the 1st!

This post contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. We will receive compensation when you click on links to those products. For an explanation of our Advertiser Disclosure, and advertiser partners, such as American Express, visit this page.

It is amazing just how many read the blog on an iPad or HP Touchpad. Do you just toss it in your luggage when you travel? Do so no more. I have a new RED and PINK Nuo Sleeve to give-a-way today!

Winner number ONE gets to pick first. Winner number TWO gets the other color! Here is how you enter. You must comment below and tell me correctly [edit: ok any guess counts] what is different on the blog to qualify.

This post contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. We will receive compensation when you click on links to those products. For an explanation of our Advertiser Disclosure, and advertiser partners, such as American Express, visit this page.

We points “junkies” are somewhat different compared to most people. When I say ORD you know I am talking about Chicago. We all have in our heads what a point is worth in Delta’s program or in say the AMEX Membership Rewards program. We all think about redeeming points for their best value in quantity of airline seats or quality of seats. If going for a hotel we want the biggest room for the least points. That’s value for our, ah hem, “hard earned” points!

Well here is a redemption I bet most of you have never ever seen or looked at. It is the SPG “Experiences” page. Most of us bloggers love the SPG personal and business card points due to the fact that if you send say 20,000 points to Delta you end up with 25,000. Redemption for rooms is very nice also. But points are for more than just cost savings. Most of us will never want to or have the income to spend say $10,000 for a 1st class Lufthansa ticket but will happily burn 135,000 points to do it. So my point is how many times, for any price, could you have the chance to play golf with say Lee Trevino, Gary Player, Bob Charles, Billy Casper? Or have a golf lesson from Mark McCumber and Andy North and then play the TPC Sawgrass? Look at this part of the SPG site for all the things you can spend your points on other than air and hotels.

Is the experience worth the points? That is up to you but I want you at least to think outside the box and know what you can do with SPG points that money can not always buy! – René

This post contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. We will receive compensation when you click on links to those products. For an explanation of our Advertiser Disclosure, and advertiser partners, such as American Express, visit this page.

I have been on exactly two cruises in my life. The first one was so good I wanted to become a permanent resident on the boat. The next, on the same ship BTW, opened my eyes to what you can be in for on a cruise ship ( that trip I will tell you all about another day )!

Here are some fun facts to know about cruising:

1) They want deposits early so you can not challenge the charge on your credit card if things go wrong ( you only have a certain amount of time to do that after a charge )

2) They can switch your room or even the boat if they want

3) Once on board they can go anywhere they want and you have no right to complain

4) Most of the time if things go very wrong they will only pay a multiple of your purchase price or, then again, just a percentage of it.

5) You have no right to a class action lawsuit if anything goes wrong.

Do all of these points make your blood boil a bit and make you say: NO WAY! That is just not right!? Well here is the thing no one thinks about. When you check in at whatever cruise line you like, and they get all your info, take your photo for your ID room card, and you sign the little box onscreen as required to be allowed on the boat, you are agreeing to a scary amount of stuff. Don’t believe me? No one ever reads the T&C before they sail ( I know I did not, but will now):

Now each of these talked about the five points I have outlined above. Keep in mind these are not American flagged ships most of the time and your rights are pretty much whatever they say they are, and you did after all agree to the terms as that is your signature when you checked in, right?

I am not saying I will not cruise again. I plan to next year for my 25th wedding anniversary, spending over 200,000 Chase UR points on a Royal Caribbean ship and had some outstanding help from my friend Marshall Jackson who I think would live on a RC ship if they asked him says:

- “behave on a ship the same way [you would] behave in another country. Be aware…be smart… but still have fun!”

I have never been on RC, but I have yet to find anyone tell me of a bad trip with them. I am not the starry eyed child anymore after what happened to me and my wife on a BAD NCL trip (more coming soon on this), and I just want anyone new to cruise ships to know what can and does happen! – René

This post contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. We will receive compensation when you click on links to those products. For an explanation of our Advertiser Disclosure, and advertiser partners, such as American Express, visit this page.

“Don’t forget. Your chance to pick choice benefits from miles you earned in 2010 (or rolled over to 2010) will expire at the end of this month. Gifted elite status from the 2010 MQMs will expire very soon, so do not pick that option. SWUs and the DL ecert will have expiration dates one year after their selection.

You have another year to make your choice benefit selections for the choices earned during 2011, although for the gifted status, the sooner the better in most cases. For the SWU and DL ecert options, remember that later selections mean later expiration dates, so strategize carefully.

Also, if you have both DM and PM choices, be sure to compare carefully: The DL or Tiffany gift cards (really a DL ecert or a Tiffany card mailed to USA addresses) are for $200 whether PM or DM, while the number of SWUs or bonus miles are different for PM versus DM levels. Note that the two DM choices must be different and must be selected at the same time.”

This is great advice, thanks for allowing me to cut-n-paste from your post at Milepoint MSPeconomist . Now I personally have already picked 20k for both my wife and I for our bonus as I feel for me it was the best choice.

Also keep in mind you no longer get one in the year you earn say PM and one in the year you fly as PM ( thus my wife earned it last year but only got one choice, nothing more, for the rest of this year unless she re-earns it again – clear?)

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